Saturday, 15 January 2011

Mumbai

I had been to Mumbai last week (not exactly Mumbai, outskirts in Panvel) with my friend for a job interview. More than the interview it ended up being an eating extravaganza. The both of us used to feel very hungry. I think 'used to' is an understatement for me because I'm always hungry. In college i keep telling my friends I'm hungry (in a weird sort of tune) and their reply used to be "when are you not".... nowadays they just ignore me :(.. At home my mum gets irritated if i say I'm hungry and asks me to eat her (bleccch). Well this blog isn't about my hunger it is about our food adventure in Mumbai.

The day we reached Panvel the first thing we reached and told each other is "I'm Hungry",my friend said "come lets go try the great Mumbai food which the guys keep talking about). The best food is always the street food prepared in the most un-hygenic way...lol! We went out to have the world famous mumbayya vada pav (....ummmm my mouth is watering as i write this). Unfortunately coudn't find any nearby so we went on towards the market (at the time we had no idea where the market was so were wandering) and finally found a gaadiwaala selling vada pav. The vada pav was good but not one of the best i had. Mission Accomplished we thought, but our stomachs weren't satisfied and we were too lazy to walk back to the gaadiwala when suddenly a sweet savoury smell penetrated our nostrils and led us straight to the pani puri waala. We ate the most awsomest pani puri ever. He made the perfect combination of sweet and spice... ummmm... the filling of white batana (white peas) goes very well, better than potato. I've got to try that at home. And the best part of the pani puri is the digestif they give in the end (I dunno what exactly it is called, I call it digestif because he gives it at the end and not because it has helped in digestion nor do i've a digestive problem :p). It was so good we asked for another one,had to pay for it though. Thus began our gastronomic journey in new Panvel, Navi Mumbai!

We did not have any interview next day so we went toMmumbai. We met up with another friend from college and he showed us around mumbai. My friend wanted to "feed the pegions" so we went to Gateway of India. As soon as we reached there she asks why are we here? so she was reminded by us that she wanted to feed the pegions. When she saw those healthy pegions she said " everybody's feeding the pegion, that's why they are so FAT (with full pressure on the word). What about me someone has to feed me i'm hungry too". My mumbai friend was amazed at the role reversal as I'm the one thats always hungry. The secret is i was hungry i just didnt say it out loud. So we were looking about for street vendors and had just spotted a samosawala, before we could reach him, he ran away like the wind. We started wondering what happened when my friend spotted municipal people confiscating goods and cameras. And hence 3 hungry people went out looking for places to eat.We couldn't find anything as it was sunday. We decided to go to Nariman point as my pegion feeding friend also wanted to see marine drive, in her words" place with huge rocks and water splashing all over them". We got lost while going to nariman point when my mumbai friend takes out his brand new android phone to see where we are and how far we are from nariman point. In the end we decided to take a taxi there. We reached there and we were still hungry. We thought we'll find something there but to our disappointment there were hardly any people there let alone the street vendors :( . Finally a chana zor garam waala spotted me (I guess i looked hungry!) and I bought one of those. It was awsomely tangy just the way i like it.

Then we went to church gate station. Wanna guess why we went there? To eat ofcourse. I bought a chicken frankie, which was totally horrible(Bangalore frankies way better...seriously o_O). We spotted wimpy's but my friend didnt want to eat there and so we went down and found a chat corner and ate ragda patties. That was good too. I guess our eating expedition for the day ended there as we went shopping after that. But I guess our friends the municipality people had a problem with us that day, they appeared near church gate too. We were asking the rate of a jacket and the keeper was about to answer when he spotted them and bolted like a lightning. And i spotted the municipal vehicle and cursed them. Later i saw that guy(municipal officer) staring at me. They went wherever we went. I got a feeling that he was following us. To my relief they whizzed off after a minute. They didn't confiscate anything they were just stuck in traffic:D.. After shopping we sat on the local train and went back to Panvel. My friend was horrified as well as glad to see passengers hanging from the train as she always wanted to see that..

There ends our adventure as the next two days were reserved for interview. No we did not get the job, but we did get to eat delicious junk food! So if any of you are going to Mumbai the first thing on your to do list must be TO EAT ALL YOU CAN.